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Sunday, July 2, 2023

LA PEAU DOUCE / THE SOFT SKIN (1964)

George Bernard Shaw split his plays for publication as Plays Pleasant and Plays Unpleasant.  An organizing principle François Truffaut might have found useful: Films Pleasant and Films Unpleasant.  Simplistic, but helpful.  Had he tried it, this fine if unlikeable work might well have topped the Unpleasant list.  Something of reverse image to JULES ET JIM/’62: illicit love affair rather than love triangle; present rather than period; drab man/two unacquainted women rather than BFF males/single life-force woman; rich rather than poor; and not a lovable character in sight rather than a trio of charmers.  Also, at a technical if not thematic level, his most Hitchcockian work.  (Truffaut heavily engaged at the time on his famous interview book.)  But it’s all those negative differences with J&J, his most recently released feature, that hold down this film’s reputation then & now.  A shame as the film is a triumph of execution as well as being unusually personal/revealing.  And that’s saying something when your career-making international debut is the near autobiographical 400 BLOWS/’59.  (It's Truffaut’s own apartment filling in as the home of Jean Desailly’s unfaithful husband.; and, naturally, during the shoot, Truffaut, separated but still married with two girls, was having an affair with Françoise Dorléac who plays the mistress in the film.)  The lurch into melodrama at the end may not quite convince (Truffaut fantasizing about punishment for his wayward ways?), but the film is so damn precise in capturing every move and moment, you go with it.  Unpleasant, but extraordinary.

DOUBLE-BILL: As mentioned, JULES ET JIM.

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